The Owl and the Ibis
by FishtheMighty
Summary: The stoic goddess, Athena meets a mortal man and tries to start a relationship with him, while not exposing herself as a goddess to him. However, she doesn't know that the man is Thoth, the Egyptian god of wisdom.


Even though she wasn't the biggest fan of caffeinated beverages, Athena admitted there was a certain charm to cafés and coffee houses. She began to stir a sugar packet into her tea while she flipped open the book she checked out of the library a few days ago. Athena didn't know how long she would be staying in Tennessee; she only came to visit the replica of the Parthenon, but she knew she would want to stay longer. It always ended up like this—she would plan to stay in a certain country or city for a certain amount of time, but the unique cultures always seemed to tempt her to stay longer. Athena was a wisdom goddess, however, and one can't be expected to learn everything about a location just by staying there for three days. She took a long sip of her ginger tea and began reading from her book. As always, Athena was completely invested in the story, so much so that at first she didn't even notice the person standing by her table.

Athena eventually saw the stranger through the corner of her eyes and she faced him. Standing to her right was a thin man with wild blonde hair and wire-rimmed glasses that obstructed her view of his eyes. He held something against his chest which Athena eventually noticed was a laptop and a cord of some sort.

"I'm sorry for interrupting you, miss. But is it okay if I plugged my laptop in here?" His voice had a slight southern accent that Athena was used to hearing in this state by now, but his accent was obviously belonged to a person that just picked it up, rather than having it their entire life. Athena raised an eyebrow at him and sipped at her tea again.

"What are you talking about?"

The man adjusted his laptop in his arms and grinned.

"There's an outlet by your feet."

Athena looked underneath the table and sure enough, there was an electrical outlet on the wall next to her. She came back up and nodded.

"Go right ahead."

Before Athena could react, however, the blonde placed his laptop on her table and got down to the floor.

"Thank you, and this is going to be incredibly awkward."

Athena was just about to ask the man what he meant, but then he crawled underneath her table and began to plug the cord in. Athena scooted her chair back just as the man came out from under the table, but smacking his head against the corner of the wooden surface in the process.

"Um, are you okay?" She reached her hand out to help him, but he seemed perfectly fine.

"Don't worry about it." He smiled and scratched the area of his head that he hit, causing him to cringe slightly. "And thank you."

Athena shook her head.

"No problem. Have a nice day."

The man nodded and picked up his laptop off of the table, the power cord still in his hand.

"Thanks, you too."

He began to walk back to his table, but the short length of the cord prevented him from moving very far. He paused and began to chuckle.

"Well I didn't really think this through."

Athena almost joined in his laughter, but she stopped herself. It would be out of character for her, a wisdom goddess, to laugh at such miniscule things. Instead, she examined the situation like a true wise person was and decided there was only one sensible thing to do.

"You can sit here if you want." She gestured to the chair across from her. Of course she wasn't thrilled about sharing a table with a stranger, but if he was typing she could just read her book and ignore him. Once Athena made the suggestion, she expected him to refuse or ask if she was sure. Instead, he just sat down without hesitation and plugged his laptop in.

"Hey, thanks again." He smiled at her and got up for a moment to get his coffee from his table across the room. Once he sat back down, Athena watched in horror as he added no less than eight sugar packets to his iced coffee.

"Sure you don't have enough sugar?" Athena twirled her spoon around the brim of her mug and stared at him blankly through her eyelashes. The man's ears turned a slight shade of pink and he began stirring his drink even faster.

"Sorry, I just like my coffee to be really sweet."

"I can see that."

The man didn't reply, he just opened his laptop and eventually began to type. Athena felt a sense of relief and opened her book again, but right before she could find where she left off at, the stranger held out his hand in her direction.

"My name is Matthew Alkali, by the way." He said his name in a way that sounded like he had to rehearse saying it, which Athena thought was kind of cute despite herself. She accepted his hand, her mind racing to try to pick out a regular human name she could use.

"I'm, uh, Athalia." She had no idea if it was a real name or not, but her biggest concern was on how uncreative the name she picked was. Matthew nodded and went back to typing and Athena finally was able to go back to her book. About half an hour later, Matthew started a conversation again.

"Slaughterhouse Five?"

Athena lowered her book. Matthew's laptop was closed.

"Yes, I'm just rereading it. Unfortunately, books don't have the same impact after you've already read them."

"Yeah, I hate that. Sometimes I can trick myself into not knowing what's going to happen next, but it doesn't always work." Matthew shrugged.

Athena wanted to continue reading, but part of her wanted to keep talking to Matthew. There was something about him that was just so…interesting.

"So have you read Slaughterhouse Five?"

"Oh yeah, I love dark humor." Matthew grinned and adjusted his glasses. "I don't mean to brag, but I have a complete set of Kurt Vonnegut's work in the 70's. Includes Slaughterhouse Five, Breakfast of Champions, Slapstick, and Jailbird."

Athena placed her book down, her attention completely averted from it.

"Okay, I'm jealous."

Matthew smiled, his eyes somehow looking even more wild. Even without the glare on his glasses, Athena still couldn't nail down what color they were. It was like the color was constantly shifting.

"You know, I could let you borrow it."

"Really?"

"Yeah, I already read all of them, so I don't mind lending them to you." He paused for a moment. "Unless you've already read them, of course."

"I have, but it's been a while. I'm more than happy to read them again." Sure she just met this man, but Athena wasn't going to pass up the opportunity to get free books. Matthew patted his jeans' pockets.

"Cool. Let me find you a pen and I can give you my address." Matthew eventually found a scrap of crumbled paper and a black pen. He pressed the scrap against the top of his laptop and scribbled something down. He handed the paper to Athena.

"Um, thank you." She tried to act gracious while she tried to decode his handwriting.

"You're welcome. If you have any trouble calling the place, I wrote my number down below."

Athena placed the address in her pocket and thanked Matthew again. She didn't even bother picking her book up again because she knew there was no point. She knew he was going to rope her back into a conversation. And this time, she didn't really mind.

"So other than reading dark, World War II themed books, what else do you do?"

Athena racked her brain, trying to find something to say without exposing herself as a goddess to this mortal man. Sure, there have been mortals who knew about her status as a goddess, but she wanted Matthew to believe she was just a regular mortal like him. She knew his type: as soon as he would find out, he would try to examine and study her. No longer would she be a book-loving acquaintance, but a supernatural being he would have to figure out.

"I read, study, sketch building designs, and weave. I'm trying to get into the architecture field."

Matthew leaned forward, his smile growing wider.

"Wow you…you're good at a lot of things." His voice sounded like someone appreciating a work of art; Athena didn't know if she liked that or not.

"Well I just said I like doing those things, not that I'm _good_ at them…but I am. So, what about you?"

Matthew seemed to be caught off guard by the question, like he was too busy learning about other people to think about himself.

"Well, I like reading and writing, of course. I'm really into science fiction. I love all types of science, but mostly chemistry. I'm also a college chemistry professor."

Athena's eyes widened despite herself.

"A professor? But you look so young."

"Well, I'm a teaching assistant; I'm still a student." He leaned back and pushed his glasses up. "And I'm not really that young."

Athena leaned forward.

"Okay, how old are you?"

Matthew raised his eyebrow.

"How old are _you_?"

"You're not supposed to ask a lady that."

"But it's okay to ask me that."

_He's impossible_.

"Well you're the one who brought it up."

Matthew groaned and slouched in his seat.

"Okay, you win. I'm 26-years-old. And I'm guessing you're not going to tell me your age?"

Athena smiled (which she hoped looked natural) and tossed a few strands of her dark hair behind her shoulder.

"You got that right."

Matthew laughed before checking his watch.

"I have to go now, but I hope to see you sometime soon, Athalia." He smiled a bit and tugged on the laptop power cord. "Um, I'm going to have to go under the table again, if you don't mind."

Athena sighed. "I'll get it this time." She bent over in her chair and yanked the cord out of the outlet. Matthew wound the cord up into a bundle and picked his laptop off of the table.

"Thank you for your time and sorry for interrupting your reading." He waved and began to exit the coffee shop. Even though she didn't want to admit it, Athena was rather sad that he left. She's met a lot of mortals in her life, but none of them seemed so passionate about learning and knowledge. It wasn't just that he talked about it a lot, but he seemed so exciting about gaining new information and sharing it with others. She could actually imagine spending a day with him and exchanging the knowledge they've gained over the years. The address he wrote down suddenly felt heavier in her pocket and the always logical and stoic goddess developed a very illogical and emotion-driven theory; She was growing affectionate for Matthew Alkali.

Athena attempted to shake the thought out of her head, but it remained. To add a little bit of reason to this, she began to mentally chart out the pros and cons of being with him.

Cons.

She just met him. They only spent about an hour together which is not enough time to actually get to know someone. Also, approaching this man with the idea of a relationship may scare him off.

He's a mortal and sure it's not uncommon for a deity to fall for a mortal, but having a long-lasting relationship with one hardly ever works out.

She didn't know how he was going to respond if he finds out she's a goddess. No, she had _theories_ of how he would react if he found out, but she didn't like any of those.

It would be too much of a risk to Matthew. If she began spending an unnatural amount of time with a certain mortal, the gods and monsters would take notice. Who knows what would happen to him.

Pros.

Athena couldn't think of any, but she knew they were there. And as her irrational self began to take control, these uncharted pros became more and more appealing. The idea of spending more and more time with Matthew almost made her forget about all of the cons she just listed.

Athena was removed from her thoughts when she noticed Matthew's cup of iced coffee was still on the table; completely full. She didn't want to throw away a full cup of coffee, so she scooted the cold, plastic cup towards her and wrinkled her nose when she remembered how much sugar he emptied into the cup. With a sigh, she decided she might as well finish the beverage rather than let it go to waste.

Athena didn't know if it was the newfound affection or the eight sugar packets in the coffee that made her stomach churn.

…

**For the record, this story was inspired by **_**I'mDifferent-GetOverIt**_**'s story, ****How They Met****, which is also a crossover fanfic that deals with Athena and Thoth.**

**This was a challenge because a. I suck at writing romance. b. I know more about Egyptian mythology than Greek/Roman mythology. Even though my parents told me Greek myths as my bedtime stories, I've studied Egyptian mythology since I was six, so I know more about it. c. I have not read the ****Percy Jackson**** series in a while. Mainly because of the movie. Yeah, the movie was so bad I actually couldn't enjoy the book anymore because it just reminded me of how awful the movie was. But you know what, I'm always up for a challenge, so this is going to be fun.**

**And I know this technically doesn't matter, but this is supposed to take place somewhere in the late 80's, early 90's, so it really bothers me that Thoth has a high-tech laptop. Aw well, it's not like I'm going to reference the time at all.**

**Also, I love the chemistry reference in Thoth's fake surname.**


End file.
